An earnest tale is not built upon a foundation of sonnets nor soliloquies. However, this particular story is beyond earnest: Not even the most elevated prose is enough to define its skeleton. Words are sewn together, golden threads that gleam with a certain promise. How does one capture the creation of an entire world from an immense love that had nowhere else to go? It is a work in progress but a valuable effort nonetheless.
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Sorrow cloaks her like a weighted blanket and she continuously chooses to inhibit her world from knowing color. Each day feels like trudging through quicksand but with no oasis in the distance as motivation for hopefulness. She feels like a walking grim reaper, as if each of her footsteps tramples fresh flowers and only grants them a reason to leave the world of the living. Sometimes, she wishes she could leave it herself, but she actually has a job. Being responsible for creating life, she finds it horribly ironic that she feels anything but vitality. She knows about finding peace within herself, that she cannot look to others to fill the empty chasm she often finds her mind trapped in, that she should give in to her role as the literal mother of the natural world and find fulfillment from her capacity for creation. No one tells you that you need to feel alive to get the job done. After a while, weaving waterfalls and sprouting wildflowers just for the hell of it get old. She desperately wants to perceive beauty in the world she has created but succeeds in feeling like she has only failed time and time again. The rhythm of the seasons feels like grains through an hourglass more than transformations to excitedly anticipate. The entire world is hers to design and yet she lacks the will she desperately needs. However, serendipity is meant to happen when you least expect it.
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There was someone seated under my favorite tree. No one actually has ownership over trees in the forest, but I have laid an invisible claim to the massive willow tree overlooking my favorite pond. Nobody knows that I created them with my own hand and so I cannot blame anyone for utilizing the products of my craft. I could see the shape of a woman and the first thought that came to my mind was that she is absolutely magnificent. A type of beauty that meant flowers grew wherever she walked, unbeknownst to her. She was strumming an ornate harp and elicited a natural awe in me. This may have been the reason why I was emboldened enough to approach her.
“I don’t mean to bother you, but do you mind if I sit here, too? I love this willow tree. It’s actually my favorite spot in the forest. I also think the music you’re making is beautiful.”
She did not hesitate to cast me a smile that rendered my heart a mess and gently took my hand in hers to show me just how to make my own music. We became fast friends and she became the sole constant in my life. My North Star, of sorts. She loved reading poetry, indulging in red wine, soaking up the sunshine, welcoming the rain, dancing in the grass, painting parts of the world she found beautiful. … Each thing I learned about her only made me want to know everything. I knew the price of yearning. Yet, yearning is a friend that you do not turn away when they deign to show up at your doorstep, even if they have wronged you hundreds of times and have wrung you dry of any love left to offer. I reluctantly open the door and let them take over my home, every single time.
My lost loves linger in every crevice of my house, and yearning tends to increase the salience of these remnants. It is incredibly lonely in my body and the fruits of my labor bear witness to my tears. I am quick to love and slow to save myself, choosing to nosedive into potential heartbreak, never testing the waters with caution. I congratulate myself for always being the one who loves more, but when will someone else see that in me? My journals drip with words penned out of deep-seated devastation and a quiet anger, the longing at the root of it all threatening to outlive me. At my lowest points when I wanted to rip my heart out of my chest solely to stop it from feeling, the world would be drenched in endless rain. I wanted someone else to weep for once and delegating the earth with the burden felt justifiable because after rainfall there is life. It feels ironic to be haunted by people who are still alive, but once someone enters my home, fragments of them become me. It hurts to let them stay, undisturbed, but I find it impossible to let them go.
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One thing I will always declare without attenuation is that I love being a woman. This is something I have never doubted. I find beauty and grace in the waves of my hair, the idiosyncrasies of my features and the angles of my body. I love that I have created a world and that I get to roam its endless corridors granted with the gift of being a woman. I celebrate the femininity that burrows deep and imbues me with a strength I hold close.
She only intensifies my appreciation of women. She sings me love songs and reads me romantic prose and I feel like I could be stuck in the cadences of her voice and die happy. Mahmoud Darwish writes, “And in our bodies a heaven and an earth embrace”: She is the heaven to my earth, and to be the recipient of her love makes me feel immortal. Seated at her harp, she strikes chords in me that disassemble my every seam. The notes glide like ambrosia down my throat and I am always undeniably thirsty. Her smile defines my soul’s propensity to feel joy and she urges me, “Love, try not to let go.” Euphoria of this caliber has only ever been the precursor to life-altering heartbreak. I choose love once again because how could I choose otherwise? I grit my teeth and pray for a fall that does not contain brutality that I cannot recover from. I often wonder if the temporary bliss is fully worth the painful aftermath. I am afraid of the intensity of her love and adoration. After being starved of affection over and over, I am always fearful to set the scene for a feast that no one attends. It is just me and my heavy heart, the table set and forgotten, except me, who is entrusted with the curse of remembering.
Her love makes me soft. She gives me reason to feel alive, and not for her, but simply because I deserve it. She is not my saving grace, but rather an anchor that grounds me when I need support and accompanies me when I am strong enough to bravely traverse the world. I want to tell her, “I hope you will always remember me. Will my existence be in your memory, or the way I held your hand or made you feel?” I find myself unafraid of the answer. If it is foolish to believe that she is here for good, then I am perfectly content choosing foolishness.
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Time is irrelevant when I am with her. From her I derive the vitality that I have been desperately searching for, which is just one minuscule gift compared to the indescribable joy she makes me feel. I am not only alive; I am living. I want to give her everything, but I start with a classic flower bouquet. I sit her down and let her watch me create one. She is absolutely beautiful and inspired and obsessed with my ability to just create flowers at will. “It’s like you’re Mother Nature”, she marvels, and I simply shrug. That was just the beginning. I bloomed endless bouquets and thought it would be sweet to make a willow tree just for her, right next to mine, but she never sat under it and never ceased to be stuck by my side. It was so easy to create the most beautiful beginnings with her that I decided that it was simply not enough. I needed to make a place just for her, rather, just for us, like a personal heaven. This gift is the closest to being enough.
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The sun sets on our own perfect little world and I cherish every minute of every day. I made the trees, flowers, hills, valleys, lakes, ponds. The world I have created anew is not just for my love, but also a gift to myself for growing alongside my creations. She congratulates me for loving, not less or more, but just as I do. She has helped me to learn how to be comfortably alone so that I can be certain that I do not choose her as a remedy for loneliness. I will never know for sure if heartbreak is waiting for me, but I choose not to waste my waking moments on an uncertainty. My love is big enough for the both of us with so much left over, and it fuels my will to create life. Nothing conveys love like turning to creation as a vessel. You are my world, and therefore I will create an entirely new one just for you. Doing so is nothing more than simple and sweet.
MiC Columnist Nghi Nguyen can be reached at nghi@umich.edu.